In the Realm of the Senses

Rating:
Summary: NOT WHAT IT COULD AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN
Review: If you are looking for a film that daringly and honestly deals with the complexity of human sexuality, jealousy and obsession...this isn't it. Either get Andy Warhol's "Flesh" or "Heat" or read the book "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai. The film seems to cling to the idea that by being shocking it will convulse you into some kind of intellectual moment of satori. You'll probably just convulse, though. It's just another circus side show like "Caligula" was, masquerading as art. What is really troubling is the misogyny of the film. It plays into the ancient, and worn out, myth of women as really being obsessed sexual monsters out to destroy male sexual power, symbolized at the end of the film. The women in this film are either weak, whiny or depraved. The men are victims of the sexual wiles of women, willing victims perhaps, but victims. Spare yourself this one.

Rating:
Summary: Film as Art--Life as Film
Review: This is a film that redefines relationship. It is irreverant, but there is a total beauty to the truthfulness of the ways that the individuals lose their identities into the maelstrom of sexuality. Not only do they lose identities, they lose...well, I guess you have to see that one. To say that this film is "porno" or "sexually explicit" is to class it with flicks that have nothing to say. Not only does this film have something to say, it shouts about relationships, the ways that people lose themselves into the abyss of sexuality, attempting to return to the symbiotic pre-birth state. I think that I have seen this film five times. Each time I come away with a different nuance into the demands of a relationship, and the varieties of demands that human beings make on each other. In some ways, it's not terribly unlike a conventional marriage....

Rating:
Summary: Good...but far too many sex scenes...
Review: I really enjoyed this one, but there were actually too many sex scenes. I was with it for the first few, but after awhile, I actually found myself fast forwarding through them to get to the meat and potatoes of the movie (which was very good!). The woman falls in love with a married man and becomes very "territorial". The man makes her a promise that Im sure he definantly wished he had never done. The promise is what leads you to the movie's insane ending. I didnt know what I was in for when I first rented it, and was amazed to realize that it sat on the shelves with all the other movies, and not somewhere in the "back room" of the video store. Still a interesting title.

Rating:
Summary: Don't try this at home
Review: The film is based on an actual event that took place in Osaka in post-war Japan. As shocking as the culmination of this erotic tale is, it is based on fact, not the writer's imagination. I'm not sure what Leonard Matlin means by "pretentious." It's only pretentious if you believe it unlikely.

Rating:
Summary: Better than Zalman King. But better doesnt mean Good.
Review: What was so hyped-up to be a very erotic and controversial film to see ended in a complete mockery of the very essence of respect of the human sexuality. In the realm of the senses proved to be more than just a porn flick but doesnt much touch the grounds of what what pure erotica is. What it shows is pure blashpemy of what it is trying to convey. Though I could honestly say that it was well-acted, its content still falls. I think one should watch more a film for its narrative content rather than the flawless presentation of just being raw. It just doesnt give the sensation and the over-powering of emotions to the viewer.

Rating:
Summary: Took eroticism to a different level
Review: The movie took me by surprise I thought that it was at first in the wrong section at the video store and I bought a copy and that is a very good movie and loaded with surprises and not meant for any prudes to watch!!

Rating:
Summary: Very Good
Review: In the Realm of the Senses is a very pretentious film. Is this film ART or PRONOGRAPHY? This film is very explicit, erotic, and very controversial. Not for all tastes. Wonderful cinematography. PLEASE SEE MY OTHER REVIEWS.

Rating:
Summary: powerful story of sexual obsession
Review: It's fairly simple, if you haven't seen this film then you shouldn't consider yourself well versed on erotica or unusual films. Not for people who think tame American films are hot. p.s. If you don't beleve that someone can be obsessed with a lover's body to the point of total distraction (and destruction) stop watching films and start living.

Rating:
Summary: Sex is the vehicle for an incredibly powerful film.
Review: I was prepared to see a pornographic film. This film cannot be called pornography, however. It simply uses very graphic sexual images to arouse very deep feelings in the viewer about very basic things. Can two people really connect, is real connection always the annihilation of individuality, or even of existence, does the victim always, in some sense, become the aggressor, and do they always both lose. I think the film is also a metaphor for Japan and China in the thirties, and how Japan conqered China, and in the process lost its soul, and how China won, as victims do, but also became something other than what it had been. An incredibly deep and powerful film; it is hard to forget.

Rating:
Summary: This is a WARNING:
Review: This IS NOT a review of this film, this is a warning.
NC-17 is a bold understatement. I have never seen a film with an NC-17 rating with pornographic content. When I say pornographic, I don't mean "late-night Cinemax", I mean if you were to rent this movie, it would be in the "back room" of the video store.
Not for everyone.
Again, the NC-17 rating means absolutely nothing.